Design Guidelines for Optical Camera Communication Systems: A Tutorial

The rapid development of the Internet of Things (IoT) has put great challenges on the next generation's communication technologies. Optical Camera Communication (OCC), with its advantages of the green principle, less electromagnetic interference, and harmonious integrations, can serve as a complementary, and sometimes viable alternative technology to mainstream Radio Frequency (RF)-based one. Designing efficient OCC platforms crucially involves accurate modeling of the OCC system and evaluating the efficiency of OCC-based techniques, which then stimulates related practical applications. This paper aims to provide a systematic perspective to understand OCC and to present design guidelines for OCC systems from theory to practice. First, the main parameters and analytical models for OCC basic components are presented to provide guidance on hardware parameter selection and system simulations. Next, typical implementation procedures and common performance evaluation criteria for an overall OCC system are provided. Then, detailed goal-oriented OCC enhancement solutions are summarized aiming to provide systematic guidelines for system performance enhancement. Finally, OCC designed examples are presented based on the results of our OCC experimental platform and some future research directions are discussed.